Paul Ashton, managing director, Equalease, comments on today's Budget.

“The schemes to encourage investment and loan liquidity for SMEs allied to a business rate cut might be interesting if they make an impact.

"SMEs form the backbone of the UK economy and account for the running of the majority of company cars and vans, so increasing the amount of cash available to businesses of this type help sales to pick up in this part of the market.

"However, I suspect it will only have a marginal effect, as will the staggering of fuel duty at a time when oil and petrol price increases are a real issue.”